


wish i could show you

by thespacenico



Series: klancemas 2018 [19]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: M/M, Team Bonding, pidge pretends to be annoyed but she's happy for them, team secret santa, that's a hard no, they hate him, they talk about griffin lol, this is really just a bunch of fluffy family interactions, will keith ever actually stop falling in love with lance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-12
Updated: 2019-01-12
Packaged: 2019-10-06 17:55:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17349872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thespacenico/pseuds/thespacenico
Summary: klancemas day nineteen: wish list





	wish i could show you

**Author's Note:**

> at long last!! this is more of like another filler prompt but things sort of move along again starting with day 20 :0  
> i hope you enjoy!

“You want us to make a what.”

Shiro snorts from where he’s sitting on one of the couches, Adam sighing in exasperation as he pushes a piece of paper and a pen into Keith’s hands. “A wish list, Keith. I know you’ve heard of them.”

Keith squints down at the paper and pen in his lap now lying in his lap. “What,” he mutters to himself.

Shiro and Adam—for whatever reason that they were hopefully about to explain—had gathered everyone into the living room immediately after breakfast, resulting in everyone smushing onto the three couches surrounding the coffee table in front of the fireplace. Lance is slumped down beside Keith, head pressed against his arm and yawning hugely despite the fact that they’d both gone to bed relatively early last night.

“So, not that I don’t love wish lists and all that jazz,” Lance starts, rubbing at his eyes as Adam unceremoniously dumps another piece of paper and pen into his lap. “But what exactly are these for?”

“Your Secret Santa,” Shiro says cheerfully, smiling brightly as Adam distributes the rest of the necessities and sits back down next to him.

Keith’s head snaps up. “Our what?”

“I think Keith might need to get his ears checked,” Pidge notes, already considering her paper as she wiggles her pen between her index and middle fingers.

“He definitely has selective hearing,” Shiro agrees before Keith can retort, nodding.

Pidge still doesn’t look up. “Probably from living with you guys for so long. It’s to be expected.”

“I’m right here,” Keith says over Shiro’s surprised squawk at Pidge’s teasing.

“Oh, so you _can_ hear us then.” Adam deadpans, grinning when Pidge starts giggling and Keith rolls his eyes.

Allura is still staring confusedly at her paper. “What is Secret Santa?”

Hunk gasps. “Wait, has no one told you who Santa is yet?”

Lance shoots straight up beside Keith, suddenly wide awake. “Allura, no one has bothered to explain to you who _Santa_ is?”

“I’ll explain it to her later,” Pidge waves a hand in his direction. “It’s not like it matters anyway, he’s not real.”

Keith huffs a laugh when Lance makes a wounded noise, but Adam quickly retakes control of the conversation before he can start arguing with her about it. “Pidge is just an angry elf,” Lance mutters under his breath, and Keith is barely able to stifle another laugh, earning a suspicious look from Pidge.

Adam is explaining to Allura the basic rules of the gift exchange and how it works. “Everyone can take the day to think about what they want on their list. We’ll fold them up and draw them from a bowl later tonight, and that way everyone can start thinking about what to get for the person they’ve picked.”

“Question.” Lance raises his hand in the air and then goes on without prompting, earning an amused huff from Shiro. “When will we be buying said gifts?”

“I was thinking we could all drive into town in a couple days,” Adam says, cleaning his glasses with the hem of his shirt. “There are plenty of shops in the square, so it should be easy enough for everyone to find what they need. That gives you some time to plan, too, and then we can open them on Christmas.”

Shiro claps his hands together and grins. “Operation Secret Santa is a go.”

“Okay grandpa,” Keith says, and then he barely has time to leap to his feet and vault himself over the back of the couch when Shiro stands and launches himself across the room but Keith is still too slow because Shiro catches him at the bottom of the stairs and pulls him into a headlock and ruffles his hair so hard he’s pretty sure it’ll somehow concuss him.

 

❆ ❆ ❆

 

Lunch comes and goes.

Keith still has not made his list.

In his defense, he really did try. He legitimately feels bad for whoever has the misfortune of drawing his name later this evening—he’s probably somehow simultaneously the easiest and yet hardest person to shop for. There’s nothing specific he can think of off the top of his head that he wants, so he doesn’t particularly care what he gets, but he imagines that won’t exactly be helpful to the person who ends up shopping for him.

Technically, the blame should fall on Adam for his distraction. He’d left a relatively thick stack of paper on Keith’s bed for him the night before, as promised during their earlier conversation, and Keith had tucked it away in the bedside dresser for safekeeping in case he wanted to try writing again. Which he does. So that’s what he’s doing, sitting cross-legged on his bed with an elbow on his knee and chin propped in his hand as he absent-mindedly taps his pen against his cheek.

He’s still pretty unclear on exactly what he wants this to be. For now, he’s decided to just—write. Just take ink to paper and scrawl out his thoughts as messily and randomly as he wants and worry about organizing them later, because he has plenty of paper to work with anyway and something tells him this will be worth going through at least a dozen pages for. He still doesn’t have much, but at least it’s a start.

 

_Hey Lance,_

_I’ve been thinking a lot. About you, mostly, at the risk of sounding disgustingly cheesy. But also about what you said to me that night that you asked me to dance. You told me that you had liked me for a really long time and that you wish you’d had the guts to tell me sooner. You also told me that you didn’t expect me to say it back._

_That’s been really bothering me lately. Not because of you, but myself. Because the fact of the matter is, I wanted to say it back. I wanted to say it back so badly, I’ve been wanting to tell you for who knows how long without even knowing I wanted to, but I couldn’t. And I think maybe it’s ~~because I don’t exactly feel the same way~~ _

~~_Because I didn’t know how_ ~~

~~_Because there’s so much more to it than that_ ~~

_Because I’m still trying to find the words to explain what you are to me._

_Basically, Adam says that I’m terrible at talking about my feelings, and he’s right. Which is super annoying because Adam is annoying but I guess he’s been kind of helpful recently so I can’t say that. Anyway, that’s not the reason I hate that I’m not good at it._

_I wish I was better at it because I wish I could tell you how I feel about you in real time instead of in a stupid letter. I wish I could tell you the things I think about you without being scared that it’s too much, and I wish I could tell you why I’m crazy about you because you deserve to know._

_And I really, really wish I could tell you that I’m pretty sure I’m completely and utterly in_

 

“Hey Keith!” And suddenly Lance is swinging Keith’s door open with a bright smile on his face and Keith has never moved so fast in his _life._ He frantically turns the paper over and slaps it down, blank side facing up on his book in just in time for Lance to cross the room and hop onto the bed, folding his legs underneath him. “Have you made your list yet?”

“Um,” Keith coughs, pulling the book a little further into his lap as Lance peeks down at the page.

“Why is there nothing on the page.” Lance says it more like a statement than a question, looking back up at Keith with one eyebrow raised.

Keith hunches a little more over the paper because he’s pretty sure Lance could probably see the ink scribbled on the other side if he looked hard enough. “Maybe I don’t want anything,” he says defensively.

Lance squints at him. “You’re telling me you don’t want anything?”

“That’s what I just said.”

“You said maybe.”

“Fine, then I don’t want anything.”

“Nothing?” Keith just glares at him and he laughs a little, which effectively wipes the glare from Keith’s face because his nose scrunches and his teeth flash and his eyes crinkle and Keith makes a mental note to make a note of that in his note. “Seriously though, nothing? At all?”

Keith shrugs. “What is there to want?”

Lance leans back on his hands and shifts his legs to swing them over the edge of the bed, looking amused. “You sound so philosophical. C’mon man, there’s gotta be something. What’s your Secret Santa supposed to get you if they draw a blank list?” He sighs dramatically when Keith just blinks at him, still very much aware of the messy handwriting scribbled on the other side of his paper. “At least write down stuff you like so they can attempt to find something for you.”

Keith huffs as Lance falls onto his back, bouncing a little. “Like what?”

“The color yellow.” Lance sticks one finger into the air. “Coffee with an unhealthy amount of sweetener, hot chocolate with an equally unhealthy amount of whipped cream, orange juice with pulp—which is downright traitorous, might I remind you—the forest, so naturally I would assume some nature type stuff, old 80s music for whatever reason I have yet to discover, ripped jeans because I’m pretty sure the only normal pair I’ve ever seen you wear was to the party—” He’s still counting everything on his fingers, peering up at the ceiling as he continues. “Super terrible sci-fi movies because you like to make fun of them now that we know what space is actually like, Shiro told me you used to want a pet hippo, which is _really_ cute by the way, M&M’s because you ate like half of the family size bag during Jurassic Park...” He pauses, wiggling his ten fingers in the air. “I’d say that’s a good place to start.” He glances over and blinks up at Keith when he doesn’t say anything. “What?”

Keith is staring at him, because honestly, how is any of this real how is he real how is Lance _real—_

“How do you—why do you know all that?”

The slightest dusting of pink settles on Lance’s cheeks and he peers back up at the ceiling. “Because I pay attention. Duh. I already told you I have a great memory.”

Keith bites his lip. “You also told me you only remember relevant information.”

He means for it to be teasing, but Lance just peeks over at him, a tiny smile playing on his lips. “That too.” He’s saved from floundering for a response when Lance sits back up and pokes his arm. “Well? Aren’t you gonna write all that down?”

Keith blinks at him. “Huh?”

“I just gave you an entire list of stuff you like! Write it down!”

“Oh—okay, okay.” He scrambles to write it down before Lance gets any ideas about snatching the paper out of his hand and writing it for him. He’ll just have to rewrite it on a completely blank sheet of paper later.

Lance leans over and smushes his cheek on Keith’s shoulder as he writes, reminding Keith of the things he mentioned whenever he gets stuck. He hums when Keith’s finished. “And following the theme of stuff of you like, make sure you add me at the end.”

Keith snorts and nudges him away, earning a grin from Lance as he carefully sets the book and paper aside (and out of Lance’s range—just in case). “Wow, feeling humble today, are we?”

“Can I braid your hair?”

Keith blanks at the sudden change of topic. “What?”

Lance tsks. “Maybe you really do need to get your ears checked.”

“What—” Keith shoves at his shoulder as Lance snickers. “My ears are _fine.”_  

“Then please, can I braid it?” Lance asks hopefully, clasping his hands together and making puppy eyes, which is pointless because Keith was already going to say yes despite feeling very suddenly self-conscious but since when can he ever say no to Lance. “I just wanna see what it looks like.”

“I mean—I guess? If you want.”

Lance is already moving around to sit behind him, criss-crossing his legs underneath him. Keith hears him clap his hands and rub them together. “Looks like some good might come out of your mullet after all.”

“Gee, thanks,” Keith deadpans, but his sarcasm quickly dissipates when suddenly Lance’s fingers are slipping through his hair and—oh. Okay, that actually feels—really nice.

He lets out a sort of involuntary sigh of contentment as Lance starts moving his fingers through his hair all the way to the base of his neck, gently tugging out any tangles along the way. Lance huffs a laugh, tickling his ear. “Has no one ever done your hair before?”

“Not really,” Keith mumbles, his eyelids fluttering a little at the contact of Lance’s fingers brushing against the back of his neck as he gathers all the hair into his hand. And for the tiniest, briefest moment he wonders what it would feel like, if Lance were just to sweep his hair to the side and lean forward just a little and press his lips there—no, nope, not going there. Not the time.

It’s a little awkward just sitting there as Lance starts braiding, humming softly as he does to the tune of something Keith doesn’t quite recognize, but it’s Lance so it’s pretty all the same. He picks at the sheets to give his hands something to do, his bangs falling into his face as he looks down at them and tries to be normal.

Pidge walks past the open door. “Ew,” she calls as she disappears.

Lance just keeps humming. “Wait for it,” he mutters.

A short moment passes. And then Keith blinks when Pidge’s head slowly comes back into view, her face uncharacteristically shy. Lance doesn’t even look up from his current project that is Keith’s mullet. “Do you want someone to braid your hair?”

“Maybe?” she smiles hopefully.

Lance pauses long enough to pat the space next to him, and Keith watches as Pidge’s smile grows and she comes to climb onto the bed, pushing her glasses farther onto her nose as she settles beside Lance for the time being. “I didn’t know you were into this sort of thing, Keith.”

Keith half-heartedly rolls his eyes. “I wasn’t.”

“Past tense,” Lance observes, and Pidge snorts and Keith feels his cheeks warm a tiny bit.

There’s a bit more tugging and the sound of a hair tie snapping a few times before Keith feels his finished braid thump against his back, and Lance and Pidge lean back to admire Lance’s work. Keith shifts a little, sort of uncomfortable with the unseen attention. “Um… does it look okay?”

Pidge scoots forward to sit beside him so Lance can start on her hair next. “Judging from the look on Lance’s face, I’d say it looks better than okay.”

Keith twists around to look and sees Lance staring at him, and his face flushes when he realizes Keith is looking back. He crosses his arms over his chest. “Well—duh! Of course it looks better than okay, I’m the one who did it!”

Pidge and Keith share a glance. “Suuure,” Pidge agrees sarcastically. “That’s the only reason.”

“Do you want me to do your hair or not, you gremlin—”

“Yes please,” Pidge says immediately, sitting up straight and snapping her head forward expectantly.

Lance has hardly started on Pidge when Allura passes by the doorway, doing a double take when she sees the three of them. “Oh! Are we braiding everyone’s hair?”

“I was forced,” Keith deadpans, and Lance swats a hand in his direction that he easily dodges as Allura approaches.

“We can do yours too if you want, Allura,” Lance says, still focused intently on the hair in his hands.

“Who’s we?” Pidge asks, tilting her head the tiniest bit to give Allura a big smile when she sits down beside her.

“Me and Keith, obviously.”

Keith starts. “Huh?”

“Keith, honestly. It’s like you want us to make fun of your bad hearing.” Pidge’s snickering at Lance’s statement is cut off by a whine of protest when Lance starts brushing her hair back out. “I’m gonna teach you to braid so you can do Allura’s hair.”

Keith barely stops himself from saying _what?_ for the millionth time today.  “That’s a terrible idea.”

“Oh, I’m sure you’ll catch on quickly,” Allura says encouragingly, turning a little to pat his hand. “My hair is very easy to work with. It’s perfect for practice.”

“And Lance is probably the most qualified person ever to teach you,” Pidge adds, bumping her head on Lance’s chest when she drops it back to look at Keith. “He braided my hair all the time at the Garrison.”

“I’m the only person that Raquel allows to even touch her hair,” Lance says proudly, planting his hands on both sides of Pidge’s head and tilting it back up. “I’ll just teach you the basics. First you gotta pick up all the hair.”

Keith stares at the white waterfall of hair cascading down Allura’s back. “All of it?”

“Keith. Again, with the terrible hearing—”

“Okay, okay, I get it,” Keith grumbles. He obediently lifts his hands and tentatively pulls all of Allura’s hair back, gathering the thick mass into his hands. “Allura, I’m sorry in advance.” Allura just lets out a light laugh and dismissively waves a hand at him to give him the go.

Lance slowly coaches him through the braiding process: separate three strands, cross left over the middle, right over the middle, repeat (“You can pull tighter Keith, she’s a princess but she could also drop kick you into the next galaxy if she wanted to—”), all the while braiding Pidge’s hair as a visual example. Keith fumbles with the strands a lot and nearly drops them on multiple occasions (Allura has _so much_ hair) but manages to make it all the way to the end without messing up too badly. It doesn’t look terrible. If anything, it’s messy, but a look that Allura can totally pull off anyway because she’s Allura and Allura looks perfect always. Lance gives him one of the several hair ties still on his wrist, and he and Pidge both watch as Keith messily ties Allura’s hair off at the end.

“Hm.” Pidge nods approvingly. “Not bad for your first try, Keith.”

Keith tries not to grimace as Allura pulls the braid over her shoulder to inspect it. “Sorry, Allura.”

 _“I_ think it looks wonderful,” she says assuringly, smiling brightly and tossing it gracefully back over her shoulder.

“The space mice wish they could,” Lance agrees, propping an arm on Keith’s shoulder, and Keith swears that he sees Pidge smile just before she dramatically rolls her eyes and groans.

“Again with the mush.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Lance says innocently, winding his arm all the way around Keith’s shoulders.

Pidge fake gags when Keith more or less instinctively leans into the contact. “You know what, I’m pretty sure Hunk said he needed me for something. In the library. Yeah, so I’m going to leave now.”

Allura giggles a little and stands to follow as Pidge promptly clambers off the bed and marches into the hallway. “I hope you know she’s actually very happy for you two. We all are.”

Keith feels his cheeks flush a bit thinking about all the times in the past few days that he’s caught Adam or Shiro or both watching him and Lance with those annoyingly proud slash fond smiles on their faces when they thought he wasn’t paying attention. “So everyone keeps telling us.”

“It’s incredible to see how close you two have grown since I first met you,” Allura continues thoughtfully, flicking her braid over her shoulder when it twists around her side.

“Yeah well, he didn’t make it easy,” Keith huffs, and Allura giggles when Lance splutters, pulling away.

“Wh—you can’t say anything! You didn’t even remember me!”

Keith scoffs. “Okay, first of all, I was a little busy trying to save Shiro to pay that much attention, and second of all, I don’t remember _anyone_ from the Garrison.”

“That’s a lie! You remembered that MFE pilot—”

“What MFE pilot—what, you mean Griffin?”

“Yes I mean Griffin! I saw that dirty look he gave you when we got back to Earth—”

“Okay well obviously I’m gonna remember the guy I _punched in the face_ for talking sh—”

“I’ll leave you two alone,” Allura decides, startling Keith and Lance out of their argument. They both watch as she slips to her feet and leaves the room after one last amused yet fond look in their direction.

It’s quiet for another moment before Lance turns back to him. “Wait, you punched Griffin?”

Keith huffs a laugh, careful not to mess up his hair as he leans back against the pillows. “Yeah, first year. I nearly got kicked out for it. Would have if Shiro hadn’t stuck up for me.”

Lance looks like he’s trying to solve a puzzle. “First year—after one of the flight simulations?” Keith shrugs in response, and Lance looks like his mind was just blown. “Dude, Hunk was there! I remember him telling me about it.” He pauses. “How did I forget about that, honestly.”

“He deserved it,” Keith mutters as Lance moves to sit next to him.

“Someone’s bitter,” Lance snickers. “What’d he do?”

Keith hesitates. _Oh, nothing,_ he thinks. _Just pointed out the fact that I wouldn’t have made it anywhere without Shiro and then tried to talk about my parents._ “Doesn’t matter,” he says.

Lance blinks at him. “Doesn’t matter,” he echoes dubiously. Keith shrugs again, and he squints. “I’m not buying it.” He laughs a little when Keith lets out an exasperated breath and drops his head back on the wall with a thump. “You know I’ll just keep asking until you tell me. I wanna know why someone had beef with my boyfriend.”

Keith closes his eyes and rubs his temples. “What does that even mean,” he mutters.

“Please?” Lance asks politely, scooting closer and pulling Keith’s arm down to link their fingers together.

“Are you trying to woo me with your charm?” Keith cocks an eyebrow at him.

Lance grins. “Is it working?”

And Keith—still can never say no to Lance, even if he does try to stall for as long as he can to avoid answering. He squeezes his hand and glances away toward the window. “It’s really not a big deal, Lance.”

“It sounds like you’re trying to downplay it,” Lance says, his voice muffled from where his cheek is squished  against Keith’s arm. “Which leads me to believe it kind of is.”

“It’s not—we were just kids. It was dumb.”

 _Quit invalidating your feelings,_ says a voice that sounds suspiciously like Adam in Keith’s brain. _Shut up,_ he says back.

“You punched him.”

“We’ve established that.”

“Are you gonna tell me or not?”

Keith glances back to see Lance peering up at him, and he sighs. “I was messing around during the simulation and got us in trouble.”

“Showing off,” Lance corrects. “I remember that much. Hunk said your unit got stuck running drills for a couple weekends. Continue.”

Keith studies the hems of his jeans. “Griffin felt the need remind me that the only reason I was at the Garrison in the first place was because of Shiro.”

He can feel Lance frowning. “That’s—”

“Whatever,” Keith waves his free hand in the air. “I didn’t care about that part. I already knew that.” Lance looks like he wants to protest, but he keeps quiet as Keith goes on. “I told him I could outfly everyone there, something dumb and cocky like that. And then he tried to say something about my parents, and I just—punched him.” Lance swears under his breath beside him. “What?”

“If I’d known that when we first got back to Earth, I would’ve punched him on sight.”

“Lance—”

“I would’ve fed him to Kosmo,” Lance mutters. “Or better yet, introduced him to your mom. That would show him.”

Keith snorts. “Okay, I get it.”

“Good,” Lance mumbles, pressing closer to Keith’s side and settling further onto his shoulder while stifling a yawn. “You’re comfy and I’m gonna take a nap.”

“Oh. Right now?”

“Mhm,” Lance responds, his eyes already closed.

“Okay.”

It’s quiet for a minute. Keith leans his head back and stares at the other side of the wall and feels the weight of Lance’s head on his shoulder and hair tickling his neck and their fingers loosely entwined and lying on Lance’s knee where he’s curled them to knock against Keith’s. He turns his head and looks at Lance and watches the slowing rise and fall of his chest as he drifts toward sleep, takes in the slope of his nose and the pattern of scattered freckles and the way his hair is curling at the ends and he wonders how is Lance real—

“Griffin is my new rival, by the way,” Lance mumbles sleepily.

Keith feels the corners of his mouth turn up. “I’d rather you not call him that. You seem to have a bad habit of falling for your rivals.”

Lance opens one eye and his cheeks flush the lightest shade of pink when he sees Keith looking down at him, but he’s clearly struggling not to smile. “I guess I do.” He closes his eye. “You look really good in the braid, by the way. You should introduce me to the guy who did it. Seems like a cool dude.”

“Go to sleep.”

“M’kay.”

Lance falls asleep.

Keith wonders when he’ll ever stop falling.

**Author's Note:**

> (((i was going to write a scene where they draw the names for secret santa but this felt like a good place to stop so it will be addressed in the next part hehe)))
> 
> come say hi on [tumblr](https://www.taxashi.tumblr.com)!  
> 


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